Carrie Preston, Kelsey Grammer among stars at this year's North Fork TV Festival
Carrie Preston, who plays quirky but brilliant attorney Elsbeth Tascioni in “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” spins off into her own CBS series, “Elsbeth,” on Feb. 29. Credit: Getty Images / JC Olivera
Celebrating its eighth straight year, Greenport’s North Fork TV Festival this Friday and Saturday welcomes Emmy Award winner Carrie Preston, her former “True Blood” star Stephen Moyer and “Frasier”-reboot executive producer Tom Russo for a series of panels, screenings, Q&As and a happy-hour event with “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer serving drinks.
Preston — whose quirky but brilliant attorney Elsbeth Tascioni from CBS’ “The Good Wife” and Paramount+’s “The Good Fight” spins off into her own CBS series, “Elsbeth,” on Feb. 29 — is the recipient this year of the festival’s Canopy Award, bestowed to New York TV professionals embodying “the creative ambitions of diverse storytelling through their persistence, integrity and inclusive nature.” The past honorees are actors J. Smith-Cameron, Jeremy Sisto, Aida Turturro, Chris Noth and Grammer.
Actor-director Preston, 56, interprets the award as being about civility.
“We are in a crazy time where people are abusing social media and there's so much screaming into the void,” the Georgia native says by phone from her New York home. “When I'm working, I try to show up and show respect to every single person on that set, because we're all in it trying to make something wonderful happen. And so many people try to spoil that based on whatever ego or weakness they might be dealing with at the moment. So I'm always trying to think about the other people involved.”
The festival opens Friday at 5:30 p.m. at the Sound View hotel and restaurant in Greenport, with Emmy winner Grammer serving up a selection of his Faith American Brewery beers at the cash bar, which is open to the public.
The following day from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the hotel is a festival brunch and a screening of an episode of Grammer’s “Frasier” revival, which premiered Oct. 12. An interview with the show’s executive producer, Russo, follows. Then at 3 p.m. at the Borghese Vineyard in Cutchogue is the first of two screenings of this year’s Independent TV Pilot & Script Competition winners. A second session follows at 6:30, and includes a post-show panel moderated by Moyer.
Preston then will be introduced by her husband of a quarter-century, Emmy winner Michael Emerson (“Lost,” “Person of Interest”). Actor Jenn Lyon, with whom Preston starred in the 2017-22 TNT series “Claws,” moderates the accompanying Q&A.
Closing the festival is an after-party at the vineyard from 9 to 11 p.m.
As of Wednesday afternoon, some tickets remained at Northfork.tv, with a full festival pass at $250, or $25-$40 passes for various sessions and events.